And Republican legislatures around the country just love to substitute sales tax for income and property taxes. Looks like they’ve found a new way to starve the Deep State they hate so much, but yet depend on for everyday life.
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That’s pretty much what I was going to say. People with no pay don’t buy anything. People with reduced pay (our household income went down about 30% this month, and will stay down at least 20% for the foreseeable future) don’t buy discretionary items,
There is a big piece of public spending that keeps getting overlooked by the rubicons. The sudden shock of food and housing insecurity will last a very long time, perhaps a generation or more. My mother, God rest her soul, was a depression era child. She continued to repair her underwear until she died in the 1990’s. She was a teacher for 30 years in an un-airconditioned building and would change 3-4 pairs per day due to sweat. not the fancy stuff, mind you, the cheapest multi-paks available at the drugstore, she repaired then for years when as a two income household could easily afford the good stuff and throw it away when damaged. Her ‘conditioning’ from food and shelter shock remained a driving force in her life for 60 years.
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The potential to reimagine in the wake of this horror is huge. If we fail that potential, it will be heartbreaking. But I am not optimistic. Not totally without hope, but I don’t see where the vision will come from.
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People who have been using their credit cards just to survive, will have to pay a lot more debt each month than they did before - it won’t be leaving much over for just for fun extras.
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All true, and makes me wonder how they justify hiring Larry Summers for an economic advisor for Biden’s team.
People are buying necessities through Amazon and other carriers, instead of going to the store in person, considering if the store is even open.
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According to The Washington Post live updates, Pence wore a mask in Indiana today:
"Here are some significant developments:
- Vice President Pence visited a facility in Indiana that makes ventilators — and, unlike on his visit to the Mayo Clinic earlier this week, he wore a face mask during his tour of the plant."
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It took companies many years to shift to overseas manufacturing; it would take several years to re-tool and build to bring it back here. Meanwhile…
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Guess he didn’t want to look them in the eyes?
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Apparently not 
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All true, and makes me wonder how they justify hiring Larry Summers for an economic advisor for Biden’s team.
Nice catch. Saw that yesterday - and all I could say to myself was … huh? Summers is right out of David Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest, one of Harvard’s greatest overrated underachievers. Obama sought his advice when he realized he was in over his head, Harvard made him president before kicking him out and putting him in with Harvard’s endowment group, where he bullied everyone, took over, and in a short period of time managed to lose almost 2 billion bucks.
I really hope Biden doesn’t make the same mistake as his former boss.
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There is no upside to appointing Larry Summers to anything. Then there’s that whole Epstein relationship too.
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And records are made to be broken. Unfortunately April numbers are coming.
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My brother-in-law is a local Toyota dealer fleet manager. Don’t know about Chevy’s, but they aren’t selling many trucks – or cars for that matter these days. He works at a Toyota dealership north of Houston, very much truck country.
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And it is taking a lot longer just to get basic stuff delivered. Many product pages include a notice that delivery may require an extended amount of time. Things definitely are not normal, even at Amazon.
Exactly what I wrote to Gov. Abbott. Just because you open up the state, doesn’t mean I’m coming out of my house. When the medical experts, not the politicians, tell me it safe or there is a vaccine, then I’ll think about it. But now, no way in hell! OTOH, there are a lot of stupid people in this state and in the country.
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I’m with you 100% and have stopped eating out several times a week. I’m retired and living in a very small town in Texas (pop. 850). I drove by our favorite little restaurant in town today on my way back from dentist, and saw a “For Rent” sign on the front door. Broke my heart. Guess they couldn’t get any of that free loan money to keep their small restaurant and bar open – the only one in town by the way. If I ever am to get another chance to go out to eat, I had planned to make this the first place we went to. Guess, like a lot of people these days, I’ll be revising my future plans a lot.
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No kidding, right?!? Covid awareness slowly trickled into American mass consciousness during the first half of March. State and local governments began acting in earnest during the last two weeks of that month with stay home orders and related measures. Businesses followed a similar pattern. Things became slower and slower every day for the first two-three weeks of March. By the final week of that month, businesses were reducing hours and taking other measures, or just closing down. Then came April.
April was the month when shit got real. Many states were shut down throughout April. Millions of people were furloughed and laid off. But - they still had some final paychecks and, sometimes, severance checks once or twice in April.
Now it’s May. Laid off people are still laid off for the foreseeable future. The final paychecks received in April have been spent. Even if there was enough severance pay to get into-through early May, that money won’t last forever.
We’ve seen already seen the unemployment application numbers for April. I’m not an economist, and I don’t play one on the Intertubes. That said, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if April’s consumer spending numbers make the March numbers look like March was Shop Till You Drop month. The economic damage to people is real. It’s deep. And it’s going to take a long time to heal. I wouldn’t be surprised if many people develop a mindset similar to the one our parents and grandparents developed during the Depression. Few people will feel financially secure when this is over. That’s going to affect our society going forward.
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I have hope that this crisis will expose the huge corporations’ corruption and greed to the extent that the populism bent we’re in forces the government to go after them. It’s hope…nothing since Teddy Roosevelt to encourage it, but I’ll keep hoping.
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